Tag Archives: Detained

U.S. student, said to be in coma, released by North Korea

Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Eric Walsh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Otto Warmbier, a U.S. university student held captive in North Korea for 17 months, has been released, but a former U.S. official said on Tuesday he is in a coma and in urgent need of medical care.

Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was on his way back to the United States, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

“Otto has been in a coma for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care in the United States,” said Bill Richardson, a veteran former diplomat and politician who has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea, said after speaking to Warmbier’s parents.

The family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism sometime after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

“In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” Richardson, whose Center for Global Engagement had directly sought Warmbier’s release with the North Korean government, said in a statement.

Tillerson, at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, declined to comment on Warmbier’s condition. A person who answered the phone at Warmbier’s family’s Ohio residence said: “No comment, thank you” and hung up.

Warmbier’s release came as former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, returning to the increasingly isolated nuclear-armed country where he has previously met leader Kim Jong Un.

U.S. officials appeared to brush aside any speculation of a connection between Rodman’s controversial visit and Warmbier’s release.

A senior administration official said the Trump administration did not authorize Rodman’s trip. “This is him freelancing,” the official told Reuters.

The State Department is continuing to discuss the situation of three other detained Americans with North Korea, Tillerson said.

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has faced growing tensions with North Korea, which has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.S. and international sanctions.

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

“At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea,” Tillerson said.

Richardson, a former Democratic congressman, U.N. Ambassador, U.S. energy secretary and ex-governor of New Mexico, welcomed Warmbier’s release but said “we are deeply concerned regarding his health.”

U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said: “Otto’s detainment and sentence was unnecessary and appalling, and North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior. Otto should have been released from the start.”

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told the Washington Post. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Additional reporting Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Marguerita Choy and James Dalgleish)

In Russia, state TV and the Internet tell a tale of two protests

Riot police detain a man during an anti-corruption protest organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Tverskaya Street in central Moscow, Russia. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Some of the biggest anti-Kremlin protests in years swept across Russia on Monday with over 1,000 people detained by the police ahead of a presidential election next year. But anyone relying on state TV would have concluded they were a non-event.

Vremya, state TV’s flagship evening news show, relegated news of the protests to item nine of 10, and, in a report lasting around 30 seconds, said less than 2,000 people had shown up in Moscow. Some 150 people had been detained for disobeying the police elsewhere in the city, it said.

The main news of the day, according to Vremya, had instead been President Vladimir Putin’s handing out of state awards.

The Internet, awash with images and videos of police hauling people off across the country and, in at least one case, of a protester being punched, had a different take.

A live feed organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained in Moscow before he could attend what the authorities said was an illegal protest, showed demonstrations in scores of cities from Vladivostok to St Petersburg and thousands of people converging on central Moscow.

Other footage showed some protesters chanting “Russia without Putin” and “Down with the Tsar.”

The competing versions of one day in Vladimir Putin’s Russia highlight the battle being fought between state TV, where most Russians get their news, and the Internet, which Putin critic Navalny is using to try to unseat the veteran Russian leader.

Ahead of a presidential election in March which Putin is expected to contest and that Navalny hopes to run in, the battle for Russians’ hearts and minds is escalating.

On the face of it, the contest is one-sided. Polls show that Putin, who has dominated Russian political life for the last 17 years, will comfortably win if he stands, while a poll last month said only 1 percent would vote for Navalny.

Putin has enjoyed glowing Soviet-style coverage on state TV for almost two decades. Navalny barely gets a look in, and if he does it is inevitably a negative reference.

The Kremlin and top government officials deliberately try not to mention his name, and state TV largely ignored Navalny’s last big protests, in March, too. Dmitry Kiselyov, anchor of Russia’s main weekly TV news show “Vesti Nedeli,” explained then that his show had ignored the demonstrations, the largest since 2012, because he viewed Navalny as a corrupt political chancer.

“Our Western colleagues would have done exactly the same,” said Kiselyov.

Handed a five-year suspended prison sentence in February for embezzlement, Navalny says he is not corrupt and that the conviction was politically-motivated to try to kill off his presidential campaign.

The 41-year-old lawyer has been trying to use the Internet to circumvent what he says is a TV blackout. He has set up his own You Tube channel, which has over 300,000 subscribers, become a prolific social media poster, and regularly circulates clips of himself criticizing Putin, 64, whom he calls “the old man.”

Partly funded by supporters’ campaign contributions, his online push has had some success, particularly among school children and students, though his support base includes older people, too, who typically live in Russia’s big cities.

A video he made accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally, of living a luxury lifestyle far outstripping his official salary, has so far racked up more than 22 million online views. Medvedev said the allegations were nonsense.

Navalny’s detractors have gone online too.

A video likening him to Adolf Hitler has racked up over 2 million views on You Tube, as has a music video released ahead of Monday’s protests by pop singer Alisa Voks who urged young fans to “stay out of politics” and do their homework instead.

Businessman Alisher Usmanov, whom Navalny targeted in his Medvedev video, also used the Internet to hit back, making two videos of his own questioning Navalny’s probity.

Navalny’s critics, including some other anti-Kremlin politicians, accuse him of holding dangerously nationalist views and of having denigrated migrants in the past. Navalny says he is able to talk to, and connect with, different parts of the electorate.

Serving out a 30-day jail sentence for his role in organizing Monday’s protests, Navalny has mocked his opponents’ efforts to use the Internet.

He says his Medvedev video has been watched by more people than some TV programs, but for now he says state TV has the upper hand.

“Right now TV is more effective,” he told supporters after his release from jail in April after the last round of protests. “But we’re looking for new methods. We need to keep making videos.”

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkish police say seeking 144 people over links to failed coup, 35 detained

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police said on Tuesday they are seeking 144 people including police, soldiers and prosecutors, over suspected links to the network of a U.S.-based cleric blamed by Ankara for orchestrating last year’s failed coup.

In raids across 42 provinces, 35 of the 144 wanted people have already been detained, the police said in a statement, adding that the suspects were thought to be using ByLock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by preacher Fethullah Gulen’s followers.

Turkey accuses Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile for almost 20 years, of running a decades-long campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

The investigation, launched by Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office, was targeting the Gulenist structure within the army, the police said, although the individuals also included academics and lawyers.

The cleric denies the charges.

Earlier, broadcaster CNN Turk reported that Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 33 people at the telecommunications watchdog and 36 people at the capital markets watchdog.

Since the aftermath of the failed July coup, authorities have arrested 50,000 people and sacked or suspended 150,000 from a wide range of professions including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.

As the arrests widened, criticism mounted, with opponents saying the crackdown had been used to crush all dissent against President Tayyip Erdogan.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Dolan and Dominic Evans)

North Korea says American was detained for ‘attempted subversion’

FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

By Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said on Wednesday an American man it had detained in late April, the third U.S. citizen being held by the isolated country, was intercepted because he was attempting to commit “hostile acts”.

The state-run KCNA news agency said the American, identified last month as Kim Sang Dok, was arrested on April 22 at the Pyongyang airport for committing “hostile criminal acts with an aim to subvert the country”.

The latest information about Kim’s detention comes as tensions on the Korean peninsula run high, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of U.S. pressure and United Nations sanctions.

The United States is negotiating with China, North Korea’s sole major ally, about a stronger U.N. Security Council response, although Washington has also reiterated that all options for dealing with the North remain on the table.

North Korea, which has been criticized for its human rights record, has in the past used detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

KCNA said on Wednesday Kim had taught an accounting course in Pyongyang.

“Invited to Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) to teach accounting as a professor, he was intercepted for committing criminal acts of hostility aimed to overturn the DPRK not only in the past but also during his last stay before interception,” KCNA news agency said, using North Korea’s official name of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Law enforcement officials were investigating Kim’s alleged crime, it said.

Kim, who also goes by his English name Tony Kim and is in his 50s, was detained at Pyongyang International Airport as he attempted to leave the country, the university’s chancellor had said previously.

PUST said in an email to Reuters that it did not believe Kim’s detention was related to his work at the university.

A PUST spokesman, who asked not to be identified, said Kim’s wife, who was with him when he was arrested, had since returned to the United States.

“Mrs Kim left the DPRK and is now back in the USA with family and friends,” the spokesman said. “We certainly hope for a positive resolution as soon as possible.”

The other two Americans already held in North Korea are Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old student, and Kim Dong Chul, a 62-year-old Korean-American missionary.

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years hard labor for attempting to steal a propaganda banner.

Two months later, Kim Dong Chul was sentenced to 10 years hard labor for subversion. Neither has appeared in public since their sentencing.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Paul Tait)

Americans traveling to North Korea risk ‘unduly harsh sentences’: U.S.

American detained in North Korea

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans who travel to North Korea despite ongoing warnings risk “unduly harsh sentences” for actions that would not be considered a crime in the United States, the U.S. State Department said in its latest travel warning on Monday.

The department, in a detailed warning against such travel, cautioned that at least 14 U.S. citizens have been detained in North Korea in the past 10 years and that American travelers should be aware that possessing any media criticizing the country could considered a crime.

Its strong advice came after two Americans were sentenced in recent weeks in North Korea and when international tensions are increasingly high with the reclusive country over its nuclear weapons program.

Last month, North Korea’s Supreme Court sentenced Korean-American Kim Dong Chul, 62, to 10 years hard labor after he admitted to committing “unpardonable espionage” including stealing military secrets, according to North Korean media.

American student Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported.

Washington has condemned the punishments, saying North Korea is using U.S. citizens to push its own political agenda. In the past, North Korea has used detained Americans to push for high-profile visits from the United States, with which it has no formal diplomatic relations.

U.S. officials have long warned Americans against traveling to North Korea, and on Monday it outlined a dozen specific actions that “whether done knowingly or unknowingly – ‘have been treated as crimes” in an attempt to further caution travelers.

Showing disrespect toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or former leaders, criticizing the government, having an unauthorized interaction with residents, taking unapproved photographs and shopping at certain stores have all been considered crimes, the department said.

Americans traveling there should not expect protection from tour groups or guides or have expectation of privacy, it added.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Megan Cassella; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)